The Trinidad and To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Miss World Or­gan­i­sa­tion pageant, Jea­nine Brandt, has test­ed pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) in Puer­to Ri­co, the lo­cal fran­chise an­nounced.

The an­nounce­ment came af­ter health of­fi­cials in Puer­to Ri­co con­firmed that at least 17 can­di­dates and per­son­nel had test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

A state­ment is­sued by the Miss World T&T said the pos­i­tive re­sult came as Brandt was get­ting ready to de­part the San Juan Hy­att Re­gency Grand Re­serve in Puer­to Ri­co. It said that Brandt had been as­sessed by med­ical per­son­nel and is do­ing well, and re­mains in quar­an­tine.

“The team for Miss World T&T would like to ex­tend their sin­cere grat­i­tude for the over­whelm­ing sup­port shown over the past months for Jea­nine Brandt,” the state­ment read.

In its state­ment an­nounc­ing the post­pone­ment of the event, the or­gan­is­ers said “af­ter meet­ing with the vi­rol­o­gists and med­ical ex­perts hired to over­see the Miss World 2021 event, and dis­cussing with the Puer­to Ri­co Health De­part­ment, the de­ci­sion has been made by the or­gan­is­ers of the event to post­pone the glob­al­ly broad­cast fi­nale…”

It said that while “ad­di­tion­al safe­ty mea­sures were im­ple­ment­ed in the best in­ter­est of the con­tes­tants, pro­duc­tion team and spec­ta­tors, un­der­stand­ing the event in­creased risks on the stage and in the dress­ing room.”

It said once ad­di­tion­al cas­es were con­firmed, the de­ci­sion to post­pone the event was made.

“The next step, ac­cord­ing to the med­ical ex­perts, is im­me­di­ate quar­an­tine, pend­ing ob­ser­va­tion and fur­ther test­ing ac­cord­ing to best prac­tices in sit­u­a­tions like this. Once and on­ly when con­tes­tants and staff are cleared by health of­fi­cials and ad­vis­ers, will con­tes­tants and re­lat­ed staff re­turn to their home coun­tries.”